What Is Christian Maturity?

Our garden has a small apple tree. Each year it grows a little bigger, and its fruit becomes a little more plentiful. It has matured over the years, and it has been a blessing to benefit from the fruit of that maturation.

In many ways, this a picture of what the Christian life calls us to—ever increasing fruitful growth. So, we read, “Therefore let us . . . go on to maturity” (Heb. 6:1).

The Example of Maturity

Christian maturity is pictured for us in the Lord Jesus. It is by being conformed to Him that we become mature and fruitful.

There is a tendency to minimize the reality of the human life of the Lord Jesus. But there was genuine growth in maturity in Christ’s life. He was a perfect baby, child, and adult. He sinlessly matured through each of these stages.

We are told this in Luke 2:40: “The child grew and became strong, filled with wisdom. And the favor of God was upon him.” As Calvin notes, “Christ was made a real man . . . he voluntarily took upon him everything that is inseparable from human nature.” That includes growth in maturity.

Christ matured as He was taught the Word by His Father:

Morning by morning he awakens;
he awakens my ear
to hear as those who are taught. (Isa. 50:4)

He also matured through the trials and sufferings of life in a fallen world. The writer to the Hebrews says, “He learned obedience through what he suffered” (Heb. 5:8). At every stage, Jesus’ obedience was perfect, but His sufferings led Him on to ever greater obedience and maturity.

The Means of Maturity

Christ is not just the pattern of maturity; He is the means of Christian maturity. The fruit can only grow when it is united to the tree. John Brown of Wamphray says,

There is no partaking of any sap of influences from the Lord Jesus, whereby to get corruptions mortified, and the new man set a-growing, till we become united unto Christ, and made one with him by faith.

Maturity develops “in Him.”

This maturity develops by making use of Christ’s appointed means. Paul says in Ephesians 4 that Jesus has gifted the church “shepherds and teachers,” and these have been given to bring us on “to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ” (Eph. 4:11, 13). By benefiting from the pastors God has given His church, we will “no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine . . . we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ.” (Eph. 4:14, 15.) Attending to the teaching of the Word brings doctrinal stability and guards from being blown off course by false teaching. It leads to becoming like Christ, our head. This is maturity. Seeing this maturity in their hearers is the goal of preachers: “Him we proclaim, warning everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom, that we may present everyone mature in Christ” (Col. 1:28).

Christlike maturity also comes from experiencing suffering in the world. Romans 5:3–4 says, “We rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope.” The trials and tribulations of life in a fallen world develop our Christ-like character.

As we are blessed by the teaching of the Word, as we are sanctified by the trials of life, there will be growth in maturity. Proverbs tells us, “Give instruction to a wise man, and he will be still wiser” (Prov. 9:9). We are told that suffering will “yield the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it” (Heb. 12:11).

The Evidences of Immaturity

Maturity is Christlikeness. But we can also see what maturity is from its opposite— immaturity. We have an extended description of immaturity in Hebrews 5:12–14. We are told that the believers were ignorant of “the basic principles of the oracles of God,” required “milk, not solid food,” and were unable to “distinguish good from evil.” Milk and childishness have their time and place (1 Peter 2:2; 1 Cor. 13:11). But Christians are not meant to remain ignorant of doctrine, or to lack moral certainty regarding right and wrong. No, Christian maturity is the converse of these things.

Another sign of immaturity is set out in 1 Corinthians 3:1–3. Paul addresses the Corinthians as “infants in Christ” saying, “There is jealousy and strife among you.” Church divisions over personalities reveal spiritual immaturity. Christian maturity, by contrast, is a love for unity among believers.

Conclusion

Christians will never attain perfect maturity in this life. Growth is always needed. We are called to “grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ” (2 Peter 3:18). Our full maturity awaits heaven. It is when we see Him that we shall be like Him (1 John 3:2). Only on that day will the full glory of maturity be ours. For now, we, while “beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another” (2 Cor. 3:18).

The day of our full Christlike maturity is certain: “Those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son” (Rom. 8:29). We shall be mature in Christ. What a hope!